


Narcissus, Echo

by Doyle



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Doyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyssa was sure she didn't move like that, fluttery and quick and bright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus, Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Set during _Black Orchid_ \- Ann Talbot is Nyssa's double.

Watching Ann dress was like being outside her own body and able to observe herself; except Nyssa was sure she didn't move like that, fluttery and quick and bright. She propped herself up on one elbow, not caring that the sheet slipped down past her waist, and watched the other girl - the other her - put her dress, jewellery, lipstick back in place. Pressing her lips together, Ann caught Nyssa's eye in the mirror and smiled.

"You're staring. I feel like a picture in a gallery."

"I would say that you look like one," Nyssa said, rather shyly, "but I think that would be narcissistic."

Ann wrinkled her nose. "You do say funny things!" She smoothed her skirt and sat on the edge of the bed to put on her stockings and shoes. "I think it's nice," she said - sounding almost shy herself, now - "to have female friends, I mean. Someone whom one can talk to and be close to. There was a girl at school…" She was paying a lot of attention to the doing up of her shoes. Surely they couldn't be as difficult, Nyssa thought, as the corset? That had caused trouble; she'd never seen one before, didn't know how to undo it, so Ann had stayed half-dressed, the thing stiff around her like a satin-covered carapace.

"What was your friend like?"

"Oh, clever. Clever and thoughtful and quiet, as though she were always building castles inside her mind and going off to live in them. Rather like you," Ann smiled, "although she didn't look like me at all."

Nyssa had never lost a lover - never had one, really, to lose, although there had been girls and boys on Traken who had walked with her in the gardens, sometimes kissed her. She had lost a family, a people, a whole world, but with nothing to compare it with she couldn't say it was the same. "Maybe you'll be the same way with Charles," she said, "once you're married."

"Oh, I'm sure I will," she said brightly, fixing her mask back in place over eyes. She leaned in and kissed Nyssa on the forehead, like an invalid, or a sister: "Do hurry and get dressed, dear, won't you? We don't want to miss the party!"

But she stayed there for a few minutes more, beneath the cool sheet that smelled of Ann's perfume; alone, and naked, and feeling for the first time the sort of freedom in that. She rested her hand against the bottom of her ribcage, feeling it rise and fall, and thought of the identical skin (would it be?) of Ann's that she hadn't been able to touch.


End file.
